The student group created an opening sequence for their horror film called "Abomination". They were inspired by the film "Hitcher" and used conventions of the horror genre like mysterious locations, dark costumes, and a sense of innocence in the young female character. The group filmed with a video camera and edited in Final Cut Pro, adding effects like color correction and freeze frames. Their goal was to intrigue the audience with an unconventional style that differed from other openings and left viewers wanting more.

1. Evaluation

2. The title of our film…We called our film ‘Abomination’, we looked up ‘horror’ in the thesaurus and picked a word which we thought was appropriate to ensure that it related to our opening sequence.

3. Setting and Location…We wanted to create a mysterious feel with our locations. We used wooded areas and roads to get our shots that we wanted.We also filmed inside Katie’s house to set the scene and to identify the young teenage girl.

4. Costumes and props…When deciding on our costumes for our characters, we wanted them to be linked in a way, we done this by our kidnapper and young teenage girl wearing the same colour, dark grey.Our props consisted of:Duck tape

5. CarWe also used make-up to enhance the identity of our young teenage actor.

6. Camera work and editing…In Final Cut we were able to change the lighting and adapt the colour correction. These tools were helpful for us, as we were able to create the necessary effect that we wanted in the completed product. When creating our soundtrack, we struggled with finding appropriate music that suited our film and genre. It took a long time to find the suited music. We wanted certain music to enter and particular times, and we had the convert our film so we were able to use it in Soundtrack. We were also able to adapt the levels in volume and increase and decrease them when needed.We used a video camera to film our footage and used a tripod so the shots were straight and well framed. We used and Apple Mac to upload our footage and then used the software Final cut HD, Soundtrack and Livetype to edit, make sound and titles for our sequence.When using the equipment, it was easy to function, for example like the tripod and camera. As we were filming in the early evening, we did struggle with the lighting, so we had to re-shoot some of the shot when we had uploaded them onto Final Cut HD.

7. Title font and style…We decided to use the typography from www.dafont.com to ensure that the title blended with film, the colours match the theme of black and white and is suitable to introduce the film with the title and necessary titles such as produced by etc.

8. Synopsis…For the opening sequence we created the feel of a horror genre whereby there is a teenage girl encased in the eyes of a stalker. The opening sequence begins in a deserted area with a car in the distance. The occurring disturbing events that happening in the opening sequence which is a dream starts to happen in real life. The young girl has a normal day which turns into her worst nightmare. Our opening sequence eases the audience into the specific narrative, by using a variety of continuity edited shots.

9. Genre and how it is reflected in our opening…For our opening sequence we used codes and conventions of a typical horror genre; such as creating black and white imagery by using colour corrector, and the innocence of a young teenage girl. We looked at ‘Hitcher’ and this was our inspiration.We also used fast cuts which created tension. By looking at the history of horror, young audiences required that gruesome images become more intense and explicit for them to become scared. Advances in special effects allowed movie-makers to satisfy viewers’ insatiable appetites for dismemberment and blood.We also used dark make up and duck tape as a form of iconography, to help establish the genre of horror.

10. Introducing our characters…When introducing our characters we wanted to refrain from showing the kidnappers face, for example, 10 seconds in, we added a blur effect to conceal his identity. When we first see the victim she pronounced distressed through her facial expressions which again reinforces the genre. The close ups shown later in the opening represent the victims fear, for example the extreme close up of her eyes which connects with the audience as being the opening to her soul.

11. 1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? When we were making our opening sequence, we took into consideration certain elements of which we wanted to use in our film. For example, we wanted our young actress to be seen as innocent yet, her use of dark costume and eye make up links her character to the 'predator' in our film. When conducting research into our genre we were inspired by 'Hitcher', we used elements from the film such as the long shot of headlights in the distance. We liked the idea of a dark character who had a sense of mystery to them; we used costume to help influence the effect of our main male lead, by wearing a black hoody as well as dark t-shirts. We wanted our audience to be eased into the opening and be confused as they didn't know what was true until the end. We hope our audience is intrigued and leave them wanting more. we wanted our style to be different from other horror films, I happened to watch a film called 'Dead Silence' where the opening titles were in black and white, and then reality was in colour; I like the effect it had on the audience and how it intrigued them. Our target audience was 15 - 24 year olds, of a mixed gender, and we discovered this from researching other films within the horror genre. We tried to develop conventions by using elements of the opening of 'se7en', we wanted to ease our audience into our opening sequence of our film 'Abomination', by using a long shot whilst featuring our title. Our sequence seems confusing, like dreamy, as it is a dream and as the story would develop, the dream would come true. We used black and white in our story to differentiate a dream from reality.

12. 2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?Our sequence represents particular social groups by using a mix of gender and age between main characters. I think the social classes represented would be working class C1 as the young girl is a student and a young male adult. Stereotypes of a male playing the lead role of a kidnapper seems to be 'dominant and possessive' over the other character, especially being a girl teenager. I don't think we have challenged stereotypes as males seem to be dominant compared to women. I think we have represented youth in a mixed way as there is a young girl who is innocent and a hard working student, whereas there is a young male who is a kidnapper and represents youth in a negative way.

13. 3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? We think our low budget film could be distributed by Paramount, as Paranormal Activity was earlier this year. Paranormal activity was also low budget and used teenagers as the main characters, this immediately leads me to believe that Paramount would be the ideal distributor fir our film as they are also both horror and should in fact attract the same audience. Paranormal activity featured a young couple that suspects that their house is haunted by a malevolent entity. They set up video surveillance to capture evidence of what happens at night as they sleep. their surveillance and home videos have been edited into the 99 minute feature "Paranormal Activity.." It was a low budget film as there were no well-known actors and it was filmed by a hand held video camera, which as you can tell is already very similar to ours. To enable us to advertise our film appropriately we could also use the same idea as paranormal activity which's main use was viral marketing. The use of viral marketing is extremely effective as it creates a buzz with the millions of people world wide (creating a wider market) that use the internet and especially social networking sites which links in with our target audience age. This means of advertising will also be extremely important as it is cheap and we have a low budget and this could be the necessary route to ensuring our target market know about the new film if we are intending on making any money at the box office. The funding will come from an American film company, yet it will have British content and actors, therefore it has British content.

14. 4. Who would be the audience for your media product?When looking at who our target audience would be, we looked at the opening what we used elements from. We looked at the Pearl and Dean website and we saw that the audience was male dominated with 65% and between the ages of 15 - 24 being most popular with a percentage of 48. Yet the audience still had a high percentage with a collaborated percentage of 52. So therefore for our film 'Abomination' we think that a certificate of 15 is suitable as we based our idea on Hitcher. a 15 certificate is given to a film with strong language, strong violence and inappropriate content such as kidnapping. The social class that seemed to be most popular was class DE, with a percentage of 34, although there is an evenly spread percentage over the remaining classes. We'd like to think that our film is able to appeal to a variety of social classes.

15. 5. How did you attract/address your audience?The audience is able to consider themselves in the position of the young girl, as she is being kidnapped. Our use of editing features her dreaming the future yet she does not know this. We used black and white to create a strong contrast between dreams and reality. By filming at night time also, we thought it would create a dark, mysterious feeling to our opening. We think with a different style of opening compared to other films, it would be interesting for the audience to be intrigued with the first opening minutes. The film would then go on to the young girls normal day life, and then the weird occurring things that happened in her dream would happen in real life. The purpose of an opening film is to intrigue the audience so they wonder what happens through the remaining film, they should also be interested in the storyline.

16. 6. Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?For our titles, we downloaded a font for 'www.dafont.com', called 'Impact label'. We made our titles in a programme called Livetype, we were able to change the positioning and colour in here and then import it into Final Cut and then place when appropriate. We used an effect called 'type', which we used for all of our titles apart from the opening title 'Abomination'. We also matched the title effect with a sound effect of a typewriter which fitted well with our genre and film. For some of our titles, in Final Cut we were able to make freeze frames which created a unique effect on our opening sequence. Disadvantages in the technologies that we used includes the slowness of the Apple Macs. It was quite simple to find effects on Final Cut, yet we wasn't able to preview them so we had to undo and the effect as you couldn't see it when it was on the timeline.Apart from these minor disadvantages, it was easy to use the technology provided. After looking at our completed product, it was good to learn the skills necessary for our following A2 year. We feel more confident with using the hardware and software which again will help us in the future. By doing research for our opening film, we were able to work well as a group with meeting deadlines to making an animatic. We struggled initially with an idea, yet once we got started it was easy. By planning ahead, it saved time when coming to the actual filming and editing as we knew what we wanted the completed product to look like. We knew what shots we wanted from looking at 'Hitcher' and when editing our footage, we knew what shots we had, and when editing them in was smoother as our footage was filmed in a similar order to the finished product. We think our film has fulfilled the criteria for an opening sequence; we have explored examples that already exist, found a similar opening that we liked from also looking at the 'se7en' opening sequence. We learn't how to use the necessary equipment and how to edit footage and use freeze frames as well as Livetype and Soundtrack.

17. Top tips…Our top tips for the following AS groups are:1. Talk to your team, do not be afraid to voice your opinion2.Work well as a team3.Have a filming schedule4.Ask technicians how to use the technology if unsure5.Enjoy the experience of working with technology and films!